Compassion is a need deep in our heart which cries out when we see someone who needs help and when we want to help her desperately. When we are unable to help somebody who is suffering, we sometimes also suffer in our heart. Those toward whom we feel compassinate are not always our relatives or our friends. They can be someone we don't even know.

Where does compassion come from? When I was young it often happened that I suddenly felt sorry for someone I did not like or even detested, when I saw him fall in an unpleasant condition. Compassion can not be "evolved" from Natural Selection or competitions for survival. It is planted in us by God, who made us in His own image, and who Himself is compassionate.